


The White Elephant

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Foyle's War, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Carnival, Case Fic, Family, Gen, Literary References & Allusions, Shakespeare Quotations, sleuthing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 22:38:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9519008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: Foyle's War/MFMM crossover ca. 1929. Phryne Fisher goes to the seaside. Mayhem predictably follows.





	

England is colder than she remembered—in every sense. Even in these summer days, the dusk comes in with a chill. Damp lingers in the folds of her clothes, in the corners of her parents’ house. Conversations are more brittle, more reserved than she is used to. This offers, admittedly, a protection for which she is grateful in the first weeks of hectic activity. By day, Phryne closets herself with her parents’ solicitor, with their bank manager, with their steward. By night, too, she works for their future. In gold lamé or green satin, in the ballrooms and nightclubs of London, Miss Phryne Fisher scintillates with deliberately public charm. She crafts the narrative to give the world. 

Yes, so impetuous of her father to go rushing off to Australia simply to bring her back. He’s impossible; she quite despairs of him sometimes. (That, at least, is true.) 

Oh, no (opening the eyes very wide with feigned surprise) her parents aren’t in any sort of trouble. It’s the sort of thing her mother couldn’t help confiding, if it were true. Mother was just in a bit of a sulk, to be honest, over the fact that Father was up in London so very often. (A little shake of the head.) 

You know how it is, she confides in the bright young things. Besides, I missed… London, she adds for the men who look at her with hungry eyes. I decided my place was here, she says, eyes demurely lowered, to retired officers and blameless matrons.

After three weeks of this, Phryne decides that she definitely deserves a holiday. And because, with typical perversity, the sun appears on the afternoon she books her railway ticket, she decides to go to the seaside. 

Squinting at Hastings through a curtain of rain, Phryne fears she may have made a mistake. The ride in the closed taxi does not improve her mood. By the time she arrives at the Palace Hotel, however, the rain has become strings of beads, and Phryne cheers herself up by imagining the kind of disreputable establishment where such things might be used as curtains. 

She is shown to her rooms by a young man whose manner is as stiff as his collars; a sad waste of a good profile, Phryne thinks. But she hums to herself while she washes and changes, and descends to the bar with a light step, trailing green chiffon behind her. It is a relief to be—however temporarily—only responsible for herself. She savors the illusion together with the bartender’s pleasingly potent pink gin. Encouraged by a ray of watery sunlight (and the increasingly interested glances of a man with a repellent mustache), Phryne leaves the bar after only one cocktail.

After the rain, even the usually-crowded promenade smells fresh, and Phryne’s view to the damp sands and dark sea is uninterrupted by the umbrellas or lounge chairs of pleasure-seekers. She takes a deep breath of the sharp, salt air. 

The promenade begins to fill again as she strolls along it, away from the hotel and the pleasure pier. Unexpectedly, she finds that this oppresses her spirits. She slips through the railings faster than thought. Almost as quickly, she divests herself of shoes and stockings, and half-slides, half-scampers down to the beach. This is better. She wanders along the tideline, allowing herself to think of nothing but the insistent scent and sight and sound of the sea. 

“Excuse me?” Phryne looks up. The speaker is a woman of about her own age, regarding Phryne with great earnestness. “I really am sorry to disturb you.”

“Not at all.” Phryne finds that she doesn’t really mind; she might have, she thinks, if the woman’s kind eyes and Marcel waves reminded her less of Dot.

The woman holds out a handsome Leica for Phryne’s inspection. “Would you mind…? I know it’s an imposition, but—“ the woman glances over her shoulder—“I was hoping you’d be dreadfully kind and take a family photograph. I’ve always rather hated those studios.” The absurd detail feels unexpectedly like a confidence. Phryne follows the woman’s glance to where a square-shouldered man and a loose-limbed boy stand in identical postures.

“Of course.” Phryne tosses her shoes beyond the reach of the tide and takes the camera. She takes unaccustomed care to expose as little of her bare legs as possible when gathering her skirts about her to kneel on the damp sand. The boy is at the elbows-and-knees age, and the man looks too staid to take kindly to being photographed by a putative Bright Young Thing of uncertain morals and all-too-certain physical charms.

“Your hat!” shouts Phryne, gesturing. It is the woman who reaches up and, smiling, removes the trilby from her husband’s head. The whole family laughs at this, as if it is part of a shared joke. Phryne takes the first snapshot with husband and wife still smiling into each other’s eyes, the second, more formally, with all of them facing her.

Sheltering the Leica’s lens from sand, Phryne holds it out on its strap, like a peace offering.

“Thank you,” says the woman. “Rosalind Foyle.”

“Phryne Fisher.” 

“You’re from Australia, aren’t you?” pipes up the boy, as the women shake hands.

“I am!” Phryne responds swiftly, consciously preempting parental apologies for the boy’s forwardness. “You’ve a good ear, young man.”

The boy blushes patchily scarlet, but holds her eyes, declaring: “I’ve an atlas at home.”

“A birthday present,” murmurs Rosalind, as though an atlas were an extravagance in need of explanation.

“Ah,” says Phryne. “Put a pin on Melbourne, if you like; that’s where I’m from.”

“Christopher Foyle,” says the man, as if it is a response to her remark; perhaps it is. “Hastings,” he adds, as he clasps her hand, and she is surprised to see a smile quirk the corner of his mouth.

“Andrew,” echoes his son, as if prodded to remember his manners. “How long did it take you to sail to England?”

Phryne grins. “I flew, actually.” She is rewarded by the widening of the boy’s eyes. Momentarily, he is speechless, and she transfers her smile to Rosalind. “Prosaically, I took the train to Hastings; I felt I wanted the seaside.”

“It’s a remarkably beautiful coastline.” It is Mr. Foyle who has spoken, and Phryne finds herself again surprised, somehow.

“I’m glad it’s cleared for you,” adds Rosalind, with patent sincerity. “And for us… it’s quite a treat to have a day all to ourselves.”

Phryne is on the point of making a conventional rejoinder about leaving them to enjoy their outing; but her attention is drawn to the promenade. There is some change in atmosphere; some change in the buzz of distant conversation. Above them, among the holiday-makers, there are running men in uniform. More ominously still, one of the men stops. He gets over the railing, not too awkwardly, and comes at a shambling run towards the transfixed party.

“Sir?” comes the young policeman’s voice. Not even the Sussex lilt, thinks Phryne, can soften that summons. Foyle slaps the trilby softly against his thigh. It occurs to Phryne that another man might have sworn.

“Well, Goodwin?”

“At the pier, sir. Another theft. And since there have been complaints, it was requested that you…”

“Very well. Forgive me, Miss Fisher.” Foyle ruffles his son’s hair, takes his wife’s hand in his own. “I’m sorry, my dear.” In departing, he runs his thumb over the inside of his wife’s wrist. Phryne catches her breath, and finds herself watching Rosalind Foyle, as the other woman watches her husband out of sight.

“This would happen,” says the boy sulkily, kicking up a spray of sand.

“Andrew,” murmurs Rosalind, reflexively. 

“It’s rotten luck,” says Phryne. “Such things have a way of following one around, I sometimes think.” 

“It is a shame.” Rosalind Foyle seems to Phryne still faintly abstracted, even as she suggests to her son that he might find some interesting jetsam left by the rain-augmented tides. When he has gone (ostentatiously slouching at first) Rosalind sighs.

“There is some stubborn part of me,” she says, “that remains entirely un-resigned to this.”

“To being left behind?” 

Rosalind smiles. “I wouldn’t have put it like that. To watching him go, I think.”

“Oh.”

“I can’t help feeling that there’s always a certain risk.”

“I suppose there is,” murmurs Phryne. “I’m sorry,” she adds quickly, “of course there is. It’s just that… I’m not accustomed to thinking of it.” Memories rise unbidden of times when she was forced to think of it; of her hand on her revolver; of her hand on Jack’s lapel.

“Yet you’re not unfamiliar with danger.”

Phryne meets the other woman’s eyes. “No,” she says, “I’m not. In a good cause—or for the fun of the thing—I don’t mind it. Quite the reverse, if I’m honest. But that’s my own affair.”

“That does make a difference,” says Rosalind softly. The world around them, still gray, seems curiously hushed and distant; the confidences between them natural and safe. The two women sit listening to the sea. Andrew raises a found object above his head with a triumphant shout; Rosalind answers the gesture with a wave.

“Do you have children?” 

“No!” Phryne bites her lip, half-guiltily; the denial had come with a possibly insulting haste. “No,” she repeats, more softly, though no less firmly. “Never wanted them. Your son seems lovely, though. I’ve a ward about his age.”

“A ward?” Rosalind’s laugh is musical, unaffected. “Forgive me; it sounds like something out of a romantic novel.”

Phryne joins in her laughter. “I suppose it does.” She is on the verge of continuing when a raindrop hits her in the eye. 

“Oh!” Rosalind turns her face and her palm to the heavens. Her hands, Phryne thinks, are rather beautiful. “Just our luck.” Her laughter is rueful, this time.

Phryne jumps to her feet, quicker than her companion despite the green chiffon. She puts out her hand. “Shall we go back to the pier?” Rosalind’s dark eyes cloud with momentary doubt, but Andrew has trotted back to them, chased by the rain, and his spark of interest is unmistakable.

“We can ride the carousel,” adds Phryne mischievously. “I’m going to, anyway; you’re probably too old for it, Andrew.” His mouth quirks like his father’s; he doesn’t appear to be sure whether or not she’s joking.

“Well,” says Rosalind, “we should certainly all get out of the rain.” They start at a decorous pace, but as the rain gathers force, Andrew takes his mother’s elbow, and Rosalind bends to follow Phryne’s example in taking off her shoes. Not for the first time, Phryne finds herself struck by something like envy, watching the wordless communication among the members of this chance-encountered trio. Unencumbered, they race together to the pier. When Rosalind stumbles, Phryne reaches for her, and soon they are all holding hands, laughing as they run.

Once again respectably shod, they come under the shelter of the pier, but are held back from the delights of the carousel by a constable’s brass buttons and, a few inches behind, the rest of him. As he begins his official monologue, Phryne’s eyes take in the space behind him: the loitering machine operators, the dearth of fête-makers. “…crime scene, I’m afraid,” concludes the constable.

“Oh, not for us,” says Phryne, and hands him her calling card. She has ducked past him before he has finished examining it. She distances herself with a few quick strides; by the time he raises his voice in protest, she can hear Rosalind’s quiet counterpoint. Reassured, Phryne begins her reconnoitering. The only way onto the pier—aside from shimmying up a post—appears to be the one ineffectually guarded by the constable. The air smells of candy floss, human sweat, and damp wool, an unholy combination; the corridors between Punch-and-Judy and games of chance are eerily empty and silent. Even the carousel organ is still.

“Right.” The skeptical baritone cuts cleanly through the stale air, and Phryne ducks around a coconut-shy to eavesdrop on it. “So you saw no one unusual hanging about the carousel?” 

“How could I?” The bluster puts Phryne’s instincts on the alert. “There are all sorts, aren’t there? Parents, waiting for the kiddies. Kiddies, waiting for their turn. You can’t expect me to notice everyone.”

“You’re quite right,” rejoins Christopher Foyle. “I don’t, and I didn’t ask you for a description of everyone surrounding the carousel. What I will ask you again is: did you see anyone there who shouldn’t have been? Anyone unexpected?”

There is a shuffling hesitation. “Not to say for certain,” the blustering voice resumes, more quietly. “Couple of lads, might’ve been creeps. Both of ‘em dark; foreign, maybe.” Phryne peers around the coconut-shy as a means of venting her feelings; she is rewarded by the sight of the policeman’s raised eyebrows.

“Right,” says Christopher Foyle again. “And there was no… outcry, no disturbance? A child in danger, perhaps?”

The burly carousel operator draws himself to his full height. “Nothing like that. Nothing like that while I’m watching ‘em.”

“So you were watching them the whole time?”

“I just said.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything; I’m trying to ascertain the facts. You might have looked away for an instant—for instance, to take a closer look at those young men…”

“Nah. Nah, I didn’t see where they went. Sorry I can’t help you, but there it is.”

“Right. Thank you for your time.”

Phryne ducks back behind the coconut-shy to avoid being seen as the policeman turns away. 

“Try your luck, lady?” says the returning stall-owner, hopefully.

“Oh!” says Phryne. “Thank you, but I…”  
“It’s the devil an’ all, having these police under our feet. And on a rainy day, too. Drives the custom away.”

“I do sympathize,” says Phryne, “but…”

“Here,” says the stall owner, “you can have your first lot of balls for nothing.”

“Well,” says Phryne, stifling a giggle, “it would be a shame to refuse such a handsome offer.” The first ball ricochets off a coconut and fails to knock it from the stand. The second curves in slantwise, taking the fruit like a googly. By the third throw, she’s well into her rhythm, and chucks the ball straight at the stand, which is left empty and vibrating. The rest of her half dozen are dispatched with equal force, though varying technique. Phryne, surveying her handiwork with satisfaction, becomes aware of a presence at her shoulder.

“Hello, Inspector!” says Phryne cheerfully. 

“Miss Fisher.” The tone of wry displeasure is hardly new to her.

“I am sorry,” says Phryne to the stall owner, whose blank shock appears to be turning to indignation, “but I couldn’t resist. Shall we, Inspector?” She turns neatly on her French heel.

“Would you care to tell me,” asks Foyle, his voice taut, “what you thought you were doing when you got past my constable?”

Phryne glances sidelong up at him, and then around to make sure they are alone. “Investigating.” 

“I beg your pardon?”

“Investigating!” repeats Phryne, amiably, and fishes a card out of her purse. 

Foyle examines the card, and raises a hand to the base of his nape. Phryne wonders whether he feels the need of taming the unruly curls, or whether this is a habitual gesture of frustration. “Investigating,” he repeats.

“You are a policeman,” says Phryne. “A good one, no doubt, but obviously a policeman, nonetheless. I am a holiday-maker: witness my shameless performance at the coconut-shy. Also—“ she regards her lithe figure with some complacency— “I have certain attractions of person which are not yours.”

“Mmm.” The clear blue eyes take her in appraisingly, without a shadow of lasciviousness. It is a type of scrutiny to which Phryne is unaccustomed, and she raises her chin slightly to meet it.

“Our evidence,” says Foyle, “is circumstantial. We are dealing with petty but habitual crime; the stall-keepers are unhappy, and the hoteliers are beginning to lodge official complaints.”

“Annoying for you,” says Phryne sympathetically, gracious in victory.

“Mm. A policeman’s lot…”  
“Quite,” says Phryne. “You’re looking for small items, easily portable, but not obviously pawned or fenced, and known to have been filched from the pier.” 

Foyle turns and faces her squarely. “Right. That’s your theory, is it?”

Phryne shrugs modestly. “You set your constable up at the entrance to the pier. It must have been worth your while to have people searched. Your sergeant said there’d been another theft, which means you’ve been alert for such things. If anything had been sold on locally, you’d know about it.”

“Right,” says Foyle again, and resumes walking. 

“You must be close to a solution,” persists Phryne as they regain the entrance to the pier, “or you wouldn’t have pestered the carousel man like that. What are you going to do next?” 

The inspector momentarily ignores this question. “There you are, my dear—I am sorry—I’m just off again. Can’t be helped. Andrew!”

“Yes, Dad!”

“I have an assignment for you. You,” says Foyle, reaching into his right-hand pocket, “are to buy ice creams for yourself and your mother.” The inspector does not quite wink at his son as he hands over the coins; but he comes close to it. Phryne finds her gaze drawn to where Rosalind Foyle has rested her hand lightly on her husband’s other arm.

“Miss Fisher!”

Phryne brings her eyes front and her heels together smartly. A muscle at the side of Foyle’s mouth jumps in what she hopes is suppressed amusement.

“Miss Fisher,” says the inspector, “I really cannot have civilians wandering around a scene of investigation as it seems good to them. Do you understand me?” It is the quizzical lift of his eyebrow that gives her the clue.

“Oh,” says Phryne. “Yes. I am sorry.” She casts her eyes down in an elaborate pantomime of being chastened.

“Good,” says Foyle, and clears his throat. “Don’t overdo it,” he mutters. “Now: you are staying at the…?”

“Palace Hotel.”

“Good. Now, I suggest that you return there, and remain there. Understood?”

“Understood,” says Phryne.

***

She is not surprised when, later, she looks up from Point Counter Point to see Foyle standing in the entrance to the hotel lounge. She is surprised to note how at ease he seems in this atmosphere, his shoulders relaxed and his movements easy as he navigates among hotel staff, socialites, and end tables.

“Mr. Foyle,” says Phryne, when he is almost abreast her chair. “What a pleasant surprise; won’t you join me?”

“Miss Fisher. Pleasure. Mine’s a whisky as well,” he adds, turning to the materialized waiter.

“I hope you appreciate,” says Phryne, “the heroic exertions I’ve undertaken in squashing my natural curiosity, to say nothing of repressing my natural gifts for ferreting things out.”

“I’ve no doubt they were Herculean.” He half-closes his eyes, savoring the whisky. “Fine stuff, this.”

“You’re enjoying yourself,” reproaches Phryne. “And what have you been doing all afternoon?”

“I’ve been baffled,” rejoins Foyle cheerfully. “The newspaper-readers of Hastings will regretfully take in the news with their morning tea. Police entirely baffled—seeking new leads in London.”

Phryne sits up. “How very interesting. I do envy your connections to the fourth estate.”

“Mmm.” The blue eyes evaluate her over the edge of the whisky tumbler. “Do you have plans for tomorrow evening, Miss Fisher?”

“Giving the coconut-shy man his revenge?”

“Mm. Do you think he’s that gullible?”

“I’m very persuasive.”

“Good. I will be there, you understand, in a strictly unofficial capacity…”

“Having been baffled.”

“Quite. As I have been—quite genuinely—overruled by my superiors, I will be accompanied…”

“Ah,” says Phryne. “Wife and child to give artistic verisimilitude…”

“To an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.” The accurate completion of the quotation raises Foyle in Phryne’s already considerable estimation. She salutes him with her glass.

“I look forward to meeting them again by chance.”

“Mm,” says Foyle. She refuses to be quelled by the look he gives her. She watches his gaze travel.

Phryne raises her hand to her throat, covering the blue enamel bird with her hand.   
“Miss Fisher,” says Foyle, as if she had protested aloud, “hear me out. I would not ask your assistance if I did not believe it could be uniquely valuable.” 

“Not with this,” responds Phryne quietly. She is surprised to hear the tension in her own voice. “I’d be delighted to provide local color, or artistic verisimilitude, or whatever you’d like to call it. I’ll be happy to help, but… not with this.”

“Right,” says Foyle slowly. “I appreciate your frankness.” Briefly he contemplates the half-empty tumbler, rolling it between his hands. “Allow me to explain.”

“Of course.” 

“We know that there have been multiple thefts on the pier; perhaps unsurprising, but this is more than ordinary pickpocketing. If the goods have been hidden, they have been hidden skillfully enough to evade a police search. Ergo…”

“…As one grave-digger said to the other.”

“What? Oh yes. Well. My hypothesis is that the objects taken have been anonymous. Costume jewelry, gold-plated watches… the sort of thing that could be profitably and safely sold.”

Phryne sips her whisky. “Ingenious… I’m impressed, Inspector.”

“With the theory, or the thief?”

“I meant the theory. Though one admires a skilled opponent.”

“Mm. My plan is to force the issue. We have searched, and found nothing; I have arranged to have my failure widely broadcast. Now: we set the trap.”

“And this is where I come in?”

Foyle answers obliquely: “I suspect, Miss Fisher, that you have more than one piece of quite uncounterfeitable jewelry. Not too expensive-looking, but… tempting.”

“Mmm,” says Phryne. “I’ll forego the cursed diamond and the emerald necklace, but I think I could find something.” 

He glances down as if half-embarrassed by his own laughter. “Good. Thank you.”

“My pleasure. Really. I shall set the bait; we shall catch the woodcock with his own springe.”

The corner of the inspector’s mouth twitches. “You are fond of Shakespeare, Miss Fisher?”

“I am… and the habit of quotation is catching.”

“Mm. I prefer the moderns, myself. What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow  
/ Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, / You cannot say, or guess.”

After a moment’s stunned silence, Phryne clears her throat. “Extraordinary.”

“T.S. Eliot.” 

Their shared silence has acquired a new intimacy; Phryne knows without asking that he has seen the same muddy battlefields, the same ruined landscapes, as she. There is one question, however, that she does need to ask.

“You could have sent me away with a flea in my ear,” says Phryne. “Why didn’t you?”

Another man might have shrugged; she is not sure how to classify the tilt of his head, the slight shifting of his weight. 

“Well,” says Foyle, “something tells me you wouldn’t take kindly to being sent.” She sits still, and sips her whisky, and waits. “You eavesdropped,” he says at last. “Observantly and—all things considered—unobtrusively. Not the act of a thrill-seeker.”

“Coming from you, Inspector,” says Phryne, “I take that as a very great compliment. Though I did hope that you might have been swayed by my chivalrous attempts to warn the coconut shy man.” 

“Ah. That too, of course. And the Gilbert and Sullivan.” It is a moment before she registers the twinkle in his eye; she raises her glass to acknowledge the jest.

He finishes the last of the whisky and stands. “Till tomorrow, Miss Fisher.”

“Till tomorrow.” Phryne watches him go, quietly fingering the blue enamel bird on her collar.

***

She has loved dressing for occasions ever since she had more than two dresses to do it in. Everyday and Sunday best had left little scope for imagination, less for joy. Now, Phryne stands before the cheval glass in flared trousers and a aquamarine silk blouse, admiring herself. She stretches fully, and dances a loose-limbed Charleston step to where her shoes rest by the door. Last of all, she pins to the side of her hat the brooch: the white diamante elephant, gaudily caparisoned with a garnet howdah.

The pier is transformed. It is noisy, fragrant, populous. Phryne loses no time in navigating a scrum of small children in order to obtain candy floss. She lingers by the coconut shy long enough to be sure that the stall’s proprietor has discreetly rubbed one thumb with adhesive. His hands, however, never stray over the top of his counter. Phryne waves coquettishly at him as she moves away.

She pauses again by the Punch and Judy. Here all attention is rapt. Phryne scans the crowd, trying to watch for a light-fingered child or an apparently tipsy man, brushing up too closely to a prosperous neighbor. The children cheer for the cunning jester.

The Policeman enters; he is horrified by the scene of violence he discovers. He stretches out his hands, imploring general pity. Punch feigns remorse, fooling only the man of law. The jester enjoins the audience’s complicit silence, and beats the policeman with his own truncheon. The children’s laughter drowns out the indignant cries, the screams.

“An apropos entertainment?”

“Rosalind!” Phryne starts, quickly smooths her face into a smile. “What a pleasant surprise!” She kisses the woman on the cheek as if they were old acquaintances. 

“Indeed.” Having gotten this far, the other woman seems to be slightly at a loss. It is Andrew who speaks up:

“I don’t much care for the Punch and Judy.”

“Neither do I,” says Phryne. She gives one last glance to the massed backs… a thief would have to remain undetected, surrounded by the crowd, until the show ended. It would require nerves of steel, and Phryne doesn’t think she’s facing that sort of opponent.

“I don’t know about you,” says Phryne, “but I am going to ride the carousel.”

The organ is loud and joyous, dominating the sounds of the machinery, and even the soft, hollow thwacks of the coconut shy. Not only horses, but a giraffe, a zebra, and a giant rooster join the race for the brass ring. Phryne surveys their serried ranks with satisfaction. 

“Mine’s the chestnut on the outside,” she declares, as they deposit their coins. Andrew races to the zebra. Rosalind follows more sedately, and sits between them. Andrew gets acquainted with the zebra, and Phryne settles her hat rakishly over the chestnut’s ear.

It gives Phryne a curious jolt to hear “Roses of Picardy” jauntily transmuted by the carousel organ. As the horses (and the zebra) gain their full speed, the tune changes to “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” and she breathes more easily. Riders of all ages laugh and call to each other, holding the brass poles with both hands, or reaching for a companion’s fingers. Phryne amuses herself by doing a handstand in the saddle, and is rewarded with a smattering of applause, punctuated by gasps. Again seated, and somewhat breathless, she meets Andrew’s wide-eyed gaze and winks. 

The ride comes to an end without further incident, Phryne retrieving her hat from the chestnut’s feet.

“Well!” says Rosalind, “that was…”

“Absolutely shameless,” interrupts Phryne, “and I’m sorry.” This is at least partly true, she tells herself. “Now,” she says, more loudly, addressing Andrew, “I think we should go find your father.” Rosalind’s quick glance is startled, but comprehending.

They find him in an aisle that is not an aisle, inspecting the backs of booths. “Eureka,” says Phryne, bobbing up behind Foyle’s shoulder. “That is, not exactly; I’ve lost something, not found something. But that’s what we want.”

“Is it?” 

He turns to face them and takes his wife’s arm almost in the same movement. Phryne waits in vain for him to seek further clarification. She wonders how familiar Andrew is with this lift of the eyebrow, this silent, skeptical receptivity. Finally she gives in.

“I was wearing a brooch,” Phryne explains. “A white elephant. Just slightly too large for good taste.”

“And?”

“And I’ve lost it!” she states triumphantly.

“Miss Fisher, if your goal was to exercise the Hastings constabulary through repetition of this afternoon’s singularly wearing enterprise…”

“Can you climb a carousel pole?” asks Phryne.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Can you climb a carousel pole?” Phryne repeats in her sweetest tones.

“I bet I can!”

“Andrew! I very much doubt it, Miss Fisher; will you kindly keep to the point?”

“My point,” says Phryne, relishing it, “is that I have attracted that disagreeable carousel operator’s attention by turning a handstand, and lured him into purloining my bauble!”

“Lured him into purloining…”

“Sorry,” says Phryne contritely. “Nasty grandiloquent habit. Too many Walter Scott novels when I was a girl. My point is…”

“Yes, I quite see your point. Go back then, the three of you. I’ll give the orders.”

Phryne turns smartly on her heel, in part to hide her triumph; Rosalind catches her and Andrew up several paces on. To Phryne’s surprise, the other woman takes her arm.

“He says,” murmurs Rosalind into her ear, “that there’s no weapon and that the mechanism poses no appreciable risk. What does he mean?”

“Ah,” says Phryne. “It means that we’re going to ride the carousel again, and that he’d personally march me to a jail cell before he put either of you in danger.” Glancing sideways, she sees the amused curve of the other woman’s lips.

“He would, too,” says Rosalind, suppressed laughter warm in her voice. 

“Don’t worry,” Phryne assures her, “I wouldn’t dream of underestimating him.”

“Are we sleuthing?” asks Andrew in a conspiratorially husky whisper.

“We are,” says Phryne. 

“Can I help?”

“You can,” says Phryne promptly. “Pick out a mount, but not the zebra. One on the other side, ideally.”

“Got it. I’ll inspect them.” On the word, he races ahead, then doubles back. “Should I be secretive about it?”

“Quite the reverse.”

Rosalind sighs as the boy takes off again. “He’ll be obsessed. Sleuthing… danger… handstands…”

“Would it help if I made it clear that the handstand was only undertaken in the line of duty?”

“That would make it worse.”

Phryne laughs. “You know, I’m getting to like Andrew.”

The crowds have thinned out somewhat; noting this, Phryne feels her first frisson of nervousness. Still, they choose their mounts amid largely unfeigned hilarity. Andrew takes the giraffe, Rosalind the gray charger next to him. The horse Phryne needs has the slightly unnatural cream color of a medieval painting. Phryne puts her feet in the wooden stirrups and enjoys the feeling of being St. George.

The organ launches into “Oh, You Beautiful Doll!” and they’re off. Phryne waits for them to get up to speed; as the first chords of “Little Dutch Mill” are heard, they’re opposite the operator’s booth. It takes 34 seconds to get out of the man’s line of sight; she then has 12 clear seconds before she can be seen again. Phryne eyes the carousel pole. If she’s lucky, she reflects, she’ll have as much as half a minute. The man will have no reason to expect one of his riders to go missing. Hopefully, the handstand will have prepared the loiterers to admire her acrobatics without raising an alarm. Even as she watches, she sees a brace of uniformed constables stroll up, apparently to ensure the maintenance of good order, without inconvenience to themselves or anyone else. On the next turn, she slips her feet out of the stirrups, and out of her shoes.

Phryne catches Rosalind’s eye. “If you’d count aloud,” she murmurs under her breath, “it’ll be one less thing for me to keep track of.”

“Fine.”

“Marvelous. 3… 2… and…”

She braces both hands on the pommel of her saddle, and draws her legs up behind her. The next step is to brace one stockinged foot on her horse’s head, and wait for him to carry her forward.

“5… 6…” chant Rosalind’s alto and Andrew’s treble in unison. Phryne gets her left foot against the carousel pole, and in a dizzying moment, reaches up with both hands into the thick air of the tent, grasping at nothing as she pushes herself outwards.

Phryne hears a gasp from the crowd, but Rosalind’s low voice does not break its rhythm. “10… 11…” Phryne is still hanging from the awning of the carousel, its ornamentation biting her palms. She daren't look down, or out, to see where they are. As she braces the balls of her feet against the pole, she hears the operator’s shout, inarticulate, enraged. Phryne grits her teeth, and tries to use the momentum of the carousel as she pulls herself up—and finally over the painfully decorated edge of the awning. She lies flat, not only because it seems the safest plan, groping for what she knows must be there. After the glare of the carousel lights, the roof seems dark, as well as thick with dust. Its surface vibrates uncomfortably with the resonance of the organ. The shouts from the ground grow louder, then fade. Finally, her hand touches it: the outline of a sack, well packed with rags that it might lie noiselessly here, behind the painted parapet. Almost in the same moment, the movement beneath her stops. Phryne holds her breath.

“Miss Fisher?”

“Coo-ee!” She coughs, chokes on the dust, and rises to her knees, spluttering and dizzy.

Below her, Phryne beholds a remarkable scene. Two distinctly self-satisfied constables are holding the operator’s arms behind his back. The erstwhile riders of the carousel are gathered within the glare of its lights, nervously patting at themselves and each other, as if fearing to discover loss or injury. Inspector Foyle stands squarely beneath her, arms slightly akimbo, squinting up from underneath the trilby. Phryne waves her prize above her head, and tosses it gently down. Almost too gently, as it disappears from her line of sight. She leans over, only to stop as her vision blurs. Quicker than a constable’s clutch, quicker even than his father’s, Andrew has darted forward and is waving the bag in triumph. Phryne salutes him, and begins the tricky business of descent.

She tells herself that her eyes only sting with sawdust. She tells herself that there is nothing to shimmying down a carousel pole. She tells herself that there is no risk, that this was a small matter, easily sorted. She is conscious of hands on her waist.

“All right,” says Foyle softly, Sussex just audible beneath his educated accent. “You can let go, Miss Fisher.” It is several moments before she is sure of the ground beneath her feet. He remains motionless behind her.

“All right,” says Phryne in her turn, and his hands drop. “Sorry, I don’t usually have a problem with heights.”

“I imagine the heights aren’t usually rotating.”

Her smile brightens beyond pretense. “No.”

“I’ve matters to finish here; if you would…”

“Of course.” She turns away, blinking a little, out of the glare of the lights.

“Miss Fisher!” She halts. “If you would go ahead to the station to formally identify the brooch in that bag…?”   
“Of course,” says Phryne again, this time with joy.

She is officially escorted by one of the constables, and unofficially by Rosalind and Andrew, at the latter’s insistence. He watches avidly as she makes her deposition, picks out the white elephant from among the clutter of diamante clasps, imitation pearls. She is just pulling her gloves on when there is a commotion at the door.

“No,” says Foyle’s voice, sounding harder than she had imagined it could. “I absolutely do have the right to detain you. The sergeant here should just about have worked out how many counts of larceny we’re charging you on. All right, constable.” The addendum is addressed to a young man with a rapidly blackening eye, who releases the man to his superior’s grip with visible gratitude. Foyle himself looks rumpled, as well as resolute.

“I ain’t never done no larceny!” insists the carousel operator. 

“The theft of any chattel, money, or valuable security from the person of another,” retorts Foyle, with audible satisfaction. “Officially, this makes you liable to penal servitude for any term up to fourteen years.”

“Here!” says the man. “Here!” The second exclamation is weaker, however, as if made from force of habit.

“I’ll give you the night to think it over,” says Foyle. “Charge him.” He turns aside, and Phryne finds herself impressed by the apparent casualness with which he turns his back on the burly and incensed culprit.

“Now.” Phryne is surprised by the suddenness, the completeness, with which his face is transfigured. Rosalind’s smile is like a reflection of his own. 

Adjusting her hat, Phryne is conscious only of being tired and thirsty. She is weighing the relative merits of slipping away and taking her leave when the decision is taken out of her hands.

“Excuse me, Miss Fisher,” says Andrew, suddenly at her side, “but we were wondering if you’d like to come back and have cocoa.”

Phryne glances up, and meets the twinkling gaze of the inspector. “Cocoa,” says Phryne, “would be absolutely lovely.”


End file.
